"BZRK," Michael Grant, is about a war that's bigger than us . . . but really much, much smaller.
Noah's brother used to be an army hero. Now he's locked up in the insane aslyumn, screaming "Berserk, berserk, nano, nano," over and over again. Sadie's father was the richest man in the world. Now her father and brother are died in a car-crash and the aneurysm in her head is threatening to kill her. Both Noah and Sadie are sought out and initiated into a secret society where they take the name of crazy people because they know that that will be their fate. Thrust into a world that's alien but very close to home, Noah and Sadie must keep their wits about them if they're to make it out of the meat.
Great sci-fi action book, I swear. Also, a great book if you want to learn about the human body . . . but, in many ways, it's quite disgusting. Especially when the start describing eyeballs . . . Urgh, that gives me phantoms just thinking about it.
This book, as my language arts teacher puts it has "language issues." And it does. Lots of them. So, now you've been doubly warned. Please do not sue me if you get a shock while reading this book. Because, see, I'll warn you thrice, these people in this book have language issues, worse than a driver from New Jersey.
But, that aside, I would like to focus on in the characters. You do not get a lot of time to learn about each character, really, you don't get a chapter on each of them full of back detail--not even the main characters. There are a bunch of little details scattered in that gives you an idea of who they are and what their "normal" lives are, but you don't get a lot of preamble before the planes start blowing up and the bugs start crawling. Which is just the way I like it.
I also sort of enjoy the fact that you do not intimately know each character as well as you should, because it puts you in the place of the other characters. No one knows much about each other in this book, they don't even know their real names (read: Keats, Plath, Wilkes, Vincent, Ophelia, Lear . . .), so it adds to the level of reality that you know next to nothing. Also, it makes it seem like none of the characters know anything about themselves, which adds another layer to things.
Personally, my favorite character is Wilkes. She is so wicked . . . I've already stated that I like the bad-girl type, haven't I? And there couldn't have been a better antagonist, because Bug-Man is so arrogant it makes my skin crawl . . . And that's what makes him awesome.
Now, onto the nanos. They are an amazing piece of science-fiction, which may or may not be fiction for much longer. As I once read somewhere, the scariest thing is something that could happen. I heard them talking on the radio about nanotechnology, and I completely freezed up. It won't be long now before people will be fighting on our optic nerves, wiring our brains, and controlling our actions, if they aren't doing it already. I couldn't quite get a picture in my head of what nanos looked like, though. They said they looked like praying mantises, but in my mind they looked more like 'nanobugs,' little toys that my brother has. It's also fun to think about the scale of things. For mascara to be a serious obstacle for nanos, how small must they be? Would you be able to crush one if you found them?
This book would definitely be in my top ten science-fictions books. Of course, there are several things that could've made this story better, several elements, like maybe going longer and telling us what was going to happen next . . . But I mustn't start being greedy, right? This book came out this year, so it's new. We cannot be expecting a sequel any time soon, which is a pity.
We'll just have to sit here and wait, I suppose, twiddle our thumbs for a bit, maybe read another book or two, and pray that Plath and Keats aren't sitting in the cafe across the street, crawling through our meat.
www.gobzrk.com is a cool website. It is not lame, like many other websites for many other books (which shall remain unnamed). You can register, play some sort of game (I haven't tried it yet), and take a quiz on famous insane people of the past! Yey!
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Peter and the Starcatchers
"Peter and the Starcatchers" by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson.
Peter and four other orphan boys are being shipped off to an island to be used as servants for a cruel king. What they don't know, though, that the Never Land, the ship that they're traveling on, carries precious cargo. Soon Peter, his gang, and his new friend Molly; Black 'Stache, the wicked pirate; the Queen's Navy; and the Second-in-command of the Never Land are all in contention, fighting battles on land and see, for the trunk of the precious and all powerful starstuff.
Did that summary sound silly to you? It should. This is one of the silliest books that I have ever read. And I do not mean that in a good way. "Skulduggery Pleasant" was an enjoyably silly book, because it was quick and witty. This book is slow, draggy, and just plain ridiculous. It's been a favorite with everyone else I've talked to, though. Even though it has the stupidest plot line ever.
Okay, I'll admit it. I've never been a Peter Pan and Tinker Bell sort of girl. I'll opt out of Neverland for a trip to Wonderland any day, thank you very much, give me my tea at four and my hatters mad, and I'll stay out of your hair. Wendy, her brothers, and the wild child who stole them away seemed always a bit to . . . I don't know. But pirates? A dog that was basically a nanny? And giant alligators? This might seem funny coming from the mouth of someone who swears by fiction, but it always seemed a bit too outrageous to me.
This books makes it even worse. You couldn't ask for a more stereotypical crew of pirates, I swear it to heaven and bad. Sometimes stereotypes are good, but in this case they just make everything worse. "Black 'Stache" refers to the pirate who has a black mustache. Originality, anyone?
Another sore point for me was that I could never get a firm grip on Peter. The book is narrated third person, and it switches from viewpoint to viewpoint often, so only about 1/3 of the book is spent on Peter. I didn't get to know him as well as one should get to know a book character, didn't come to understand what he was thinking and feeling as you should with a well-rounded character.
Oh, something else against Peter. He was basically like "Starstuff exists? Okay!" Gullible little bugger, he is. In most books people who used to live on the street are smart and never take things at first glance. Sure, he pokes around a bit and asks questions and whatnot, but mainly he's just . . . too believing. And he's not enough of a rapscallion or a rascal. Wasn't J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan a rapscallion and a rascal?
The character of Molly was a bit unpredictable. Well, way unpredictable. She didn't act in a set pattern. Have you noticed that people act in a set pattern? Someone punches them, they will cry or punch back. They are left at the mercies of the powers that be, and they will grovel and scream or give the powers that be a shiner to remember them by. Molly's character cries and gives shiners. It makes no sense.
Also, most of the humor falls flat. The second paragraph of the first chapter was funny. I didn't get the rest of it. Um, food that's made out of worms isn't funny. Um, dropping the two heaviest people on the ship overboard isn't funny. Um, a captain with discarded meat parts over his cabin isn't funny. Um, telling a porpoise that you have green teeth isn't funny. Um, I'm sorry, but this book just isn't funny. Sorry to bust your bubble. I mean, come on. "The Fellowship of the Rings" is funnier, and that book is basically written in Old English.
So, fly straight until midnight, then take the third start to the right, or whatever it is, if it pleases you, but the magic that you find at the end of this rainbow is loud and obvious and one can definitely do without it.
Peter and four other orphan boys are being shipped off to an island to be used as servants for a cruel king. What they don't know, though, that the Never Land, the ship that they're traveling on, carries precious cargo. Soon Peter, his gang, and his new friend Molly; Black 'Stache, the wicked pirate; the Queen's Navy; and the Second-in-command of the Never Land are all in contention, fighting battles on land and see, for the trunk of the precious and all powerful starstuff.
Did that summary sound silly to you? It should. This is one of the silliest books that I have ever read. And I do not mean that in a good way. "Skulduggery Pleasant" was an enjoyably silly book, because it was quick and witty. This book is slow, draggy, and just plain ridiculous. It's been a favorite with everyone else I've talked to, though. Even though it has the stupidest plot line ever.
Okay, I'll admit it. I've never been a Peter Pan and Tinker Bell sort of girl. I'll opt out of Neverland for a trip to Wonderland any day, thank you very much, give me my tea at four and my hatters mad, and I'll stay out of your hair. Wendy, her brothers, and the wild child who stole them away seemed always a bit to . . . I don't know. But pirates? A dog that was basically a nanny? And giant alligators? This might seem funny coming from the mouth of someone who swears by fiction, but it always seemed a bit too outrageous to me.
This books makes it even worse. You couldn't ask for a more stereotypical crew of pirates, I swear it to heaven and bad. Sometimes stereotypes are good, but in this case they just make everything worse. "Black 'Stache" refers to the pirate who has a black mustache. Originality, anyone?
Another sore point for me was that I could never get a firm grip on Peter. The book is narrated third person, and it switches from viewpoint to viewpoint often, so only about 1/3 of the book is spent on Peter. I didn't get to know him as well as one should get to know a book character, didn't come to understand what he was thinking and feeling as you should with a well-rounded character.
Oh, something else against Peter. He was basically like "Starstuff exists? Okay!" Gullible little bugger, he is. In most books people who used to live on the street are smart and never take things at first glance. Sure, he pokes around a bit and asks questions and whatnot, but mainly he's just . . . too believing. And he's not enough of a rapscallion or a rascal. Wasn't J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan a rapscallion and a rascal?
The character of Molly was a bit unpredictable. Well, way unpredictable. She didn't act in a set pattern. Have you noticed that people act in a set pattern? Someone punches them, they will cry or punch back. They are left at the mercies of the powers that be, and they will grovel and scream or give the powers that be a shiner to remember them by. Molly's character cries and gives shiners. It makes no sense.
Also, most of the humor falls flat. The second paragraph of the first chapter was funny. I didn't get the rest of it. Um, food that's made out of worms isn't funny. Um, dropping the two heaviest people on the ship overboard isn't funny. Um, a captain with discarded meat parts over his cabin isn't funny. Um, telling a porpoise that you have green teeth isn't funny. Um, I'm sorry, but this book just isn't funny. Sorry to bust your bubble. I mean, come on. "The Fellowship of the Rings" is funnier, and that book is basically written in Old English.
So, fly straight until midnight, then take the third start to the right, or whatever it is, if it pleases you, but the magic that you find at the end of this rainbow is loud and obvious and one can definitely do without it.
The Curiosities: A collection of stories
"The Curiosities: a collection of stories" a, well, collection of stories, all by either Brenna Yovanoff, Tessa Gratton, or Maggie Stiefvater.
Psychopaths with piano wire, dragon slayers with one night left to live, puddles that contain secrets or puddles that contain the zombie virus, silver boxes that hold hearts and the key to living . . . Maggie Stiefvater, Brenna Yovanoff, and Tessa Gratton explore the "playground" (more of an, uh, insane asylum) of their minds with short stories posted to their blogs. Each author makes comments on the side margins of one another's work, providing extra insight to each of the wonderfully twisted stories, which are works of art themselves. Whether you're reading about delightful zombies, Nordic beserkers, or a world on fire, the worlds they exist in are both perfectly exquisite, and wonderfully alien.
This is, hands down, the best anthology ever. Better than that "Steampunk" one, and you know how I prattled on about that. And this one had hardly a wit of identifiable steampunk in it.
I have recently discovered, within me, a passion for stories that end unhappily. I discovered it before I read this book. But, anyway, if you do not like unhappy endings, do not read further. Never look for the book on the shelves. The stories are realistic, to some degree, and not every tale has a happy ending with glitter and butterflies. Sometimes people have to cut out their hearts. And this makes me happy.
Each of the stories is something vastly different, if ever the same. Nearly all of the stories revolve around a teenage girl heroine, who has to overcome some ordeal. Sometimes she gets slaughtered, sometimes she succeeds in her task, and sometimes you're left standing on a barbed wire fence, an eye on both possibilities.
The characters or settings may not be very deep or well-developed characters, but that's only because the stories are brief clips. I can deal with that when the stories are as haunting as they are here, though with every character you want to know more about them. Where did they come from? Who are they really? Where are they going? What are they trying to tell you? Reading this book is like looking through a picture album, each picture from a different place, telling a different story.
Maggie Steifvater wrote the "Shiver" series (a bunch of romantic claptrap), don't ask me what the series is really called. She also wrote "The Scorpio Races," which looks to be infinitely better. Brenna Yovanoff wrote the amazing "The Replacement" and the equally dazzling "The Space Between." I've never read anything by Tessa Gratton, but her main focus seems to be with the Nordic Gods, which is always good.
I can't really do much more analyzing, unless I want to basically tell you what half the stories are. I can tell you, though, that you have to READ THIS BOOK. If you don't, there's not telling you what horrible fate you might come to, whether it be death by piano wire or lack of good literature.
The idea for this book started on www.merryfates.com All of the stories are posted here, as well as some extra ones, if you don't want to get off your computer and go to the library.
Psychopaths with piano wire, dragon slayers with one night left to live, puddles that contain secrets or puddles that contain the zombie virus, silver boxes that hold hearts and the key to living . . . Maggie Stiefvater, Brenna Yovanoff, and Tessa Gratton explore the "playground" (more of an, uh, insane asylum) of their minds with short stories posted to their blogs. Each author makes comments on the side margins of one another's work, providing extra insight to each of the wonderfully twisted stories, which are works of art themselves. Whether you're reading about delightful zombies, Nordic beserkers, or a world on fire, the worlds they exist in are both perfectly exquisite, and wonderfully alien.
This is, hands down, the best anthology ever. Better than that "Steampunk" one, and you know how I prattled on about that. And this one had hardly a wit of identifiable steampunk in it.
I have recently discovered, within me, a passion for stories that end unhappily. I discovered it before I read this book. But, anyway, if you do not like unhappy endings, do not read further. Never look for the book on the shelves. The stories are realistic, to some degree, and not every tale has a happy ending with glitter and butterflies. Sometimes people have to cut out their hearts. And this makes me happy.
Each of the stories is something vastly different, if ever the same. Nearly all of the stories revolve around a teenage girl heroine, who has to overcome some ordeal. Sometimes she gets slaughtered, sometimes she succeeds in her task, and sometimes you're left standing on a barbed wire fence, an eye on both possibilities.
The characters or settings may not be very deep or well-developed characters, but that's only because the stories are brief clips. I can deal with that when the stories are as haunting as they are here, though with every character you want to know more about them. Where did they come from? Who are they really? Where are they going? What are they trying to tell you? Reading this book is like looking through a picture album, each picture from a different place, telling a different story.
Maggie Steifvater wrote the "Shiver" series (a bunch of romantic claptrap), don't ask me what the series is really called. She also wrote "The Scorpio Races," which looks to be infinitely better. Brenna Yovanoff wrote the amazing "The Replacement" and the equally dazzling "The Space Between." I've never read anything by Tessa Gratton, but her main focus seems to be with the Nordic Gods, which is always good.
I can't really do much more analyzing, unless I want to basically tell you what half the stories are. I can tell you, though, that you have to READ THIS BOOK. If you don't, there's not telling you what horrible fate you might come to, whether it be death by piano wire or lack of good literature.
The idea for this book started on www.merryfates.com All of the stories are posted here, as well as some extra ones, if you don't want to get off your computer and go to the library.
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
The Iron Thorn
"The Iron Thorn," Caitlin Kittredge, is worth it's weight in gold, even though it's a decently heavy book.
Aofie Greyson is going to go mad when she turns 16 years old. It happened to her mother and it happened to her brother. They say it's because of a necrovirus that came into the world years ago. It creates such creatures as the nightjars and the shaggoths . . . and for some unknown reason, it's going to drive Aofie mad. But when Aofie gets a cryptic message from her mad brother that takes her on a journey beyond all that she ever imagined knowing, she realizes that there might be more to the madness than a simple virus. A journey between the dimensions forces Aofie and her companions that what is rational may not be what's right.
If you know me at all, then you know that my three literary loves are steampunk, Faeries, and creepiness. Believe it or not, this hits three out of three. On the head. It's really quite extraordinary, the way that first two are woven together, with the third as a result.
There are three main characters: Aofie, Dean, and Cal. Aofie is a well-defined character. She has her edges and her ripples, and even though she's constantly changing you know where she is, in the metaphorical sense, all the time. I would've liked it if we were shown that Aofie is good with machines. I mean, yes, she is in engineer school, and it says about a dozen times throughout the book that the only thing that had "ever felt real to her were machines" or the whatnot, but we don't really see her in action until she's fixing the clock. Maybe show her fixing some clockwork before she drags Cal off to the night market or something. I don't know. But it's always best to show, not tell, in the story sense, and this story does a bit more telling than strictly wanted.
Dean Harrison is to "The Iron Thorn" as Jack is to "The Blood Red Road." The lovable rouge who comes in the nick of time, always manages to find a way out of scrapes, and manages to win the tough maiden's heart (even though it's never that hard, as seeing they have little to none competition). Yes, I know this is a stereotypical character for the adventure genre, but Jack and Dean could be the same exact person, save for the name. Not that that's a bad thing. I like rouges. If I was a character in an adventure story, I would be the rouge. But, you know. Every genre has it's stereotypes, so, I was just pointing that out. Playing devil's advocate over here.
Cal . . . *sigh*. Cal. Um, well, let's just say that Cal is an interesting character. I am not pleased with how he was built up, but I am pleased with the problems he presents. You won't follow me until you read the book. And I can't tell you until you read the book. Because I'd hate to ruin the surprise of it all.
Now . . . The plot! The real gold of this endeavor! Oh, I can't gush enough over the plot. There are things you don't see coming, things you do see coming and cringe when they do come, and things that are so inevitable, but so well done. There is the romance plot, of course, which you can spot coming from a mile off because it's like "duh". That one is pretty well done, but it's not the best. I like the Faerie plot the best. Of course, they don't call them Faeries, exactly, but if you've ever read a contemporary fiction book, you can tell what they are. And of course, you know what's going to happen just after the people close their mouths', but it's like a train wreck. You can't stop yourself from reading it, even though you know it's going to be horrible.
Also, I love the steampunk world. Love, love, love. It's a completely believable world, one where they live and love and breath and it's all too real. The detail is incredible, and what detail you aren't given isn't hard to fill in on your own. The politics of cities and the rules of life are completely relatable, even though they don't apply at all to real life. It takes true talent to make a make-believe world real, and this one has it all.
There are also several things that have been given a new face. Most importantly, Weirds. In most books they're called 'affinities.' Or, at least, I would call them affinities, but then again, I do live in my own special universe. So, I guess I wouldn't know what they are called, generally. But this, again, is one you can see from miles away. I'm just glad that she doesn't make some sort of big deal out of it. Because if it was half the book, just trying to figure that out . . . that would be boring. Half a book spent doing anything, really, is pretty boring.
This one might be the first one in the series. Something about the "Iron Codex" was in the author's bio, but I'm not so sure.
Aofie Grayson: Torn between the iron and the wild. She must figure out where she fits in before it destroys her and everyone she's ever cared about. And even though her tale might be one of tragedy, she and her folk will always survive and prosper in my heart.
www.caitlinkittredge.com She generally writes adult books, that's my impression, but it might be worth a shot. Uh, and her "books" page isn't up and running, so go to the "blogs" tab, then go to "caitlin's books." Not a lot of information there, but just if you were wondering.
Aofie Greyson is going to go mad when she turns 16 years old. It happened to her mother and it happened to her brother. They say it's because of a necrovirus that came into the world years ago. It creates such creatures as the nightjars and the shaggoths . . . and for some unknown reason, it's going to drive Aofie mad. But when Aofie gets a cryptic message from her mad brother that takes her on a journey beyond all that she ever imagined knowing, she realizes that there might be more to the madness than a simple virus. A journey between the dimensions forces Aofie and her companions that what is rational may not be what's right.
If you know me at all, then you know that my three literary loves are steampunk, Faeries, and creepiness. Believe it or not, this hits three out of three. On the head. It's really quite extraordinary, the way that first two are woven together, with the third as a result.
There are three main characters: Aofie, Dean, and Cal. Aofie is a well-defined character. She has her edges and her ripples, and even though she's constantly changing you know where she is, in the metaphorical sense, all the time. I would've liked it if we were shown that Aofie is good with machines. I mean, yes, she is in engineer school, and it says about a dozen times throughout the book that the only thing that had "ever felt real to her were machines" or the whatnot, but we don't really see her in action until she's fixing the clock. Maybe show her fixing some clockwork before she drags Cal off to the night market or something. I don't know. But it's always best to show, not tell, in the story sense, and this story does a bit more telling than strictly wanted.
Dean Harrison is to "The Iron Thorn" as Jack is to "The Blood Red Road." The lovable rouge who comes in the nick of time, always manages to find a way out of scrapes, and manages to win the tough maiden's heart (even though it's never that hard, as seeing they have little to none competition). Yes, I know this is a stereotypical character for the adventure genre, but Jack and Dean could be the same exact person, save for the name. Not that that's a bad thing. I like rouges. If I was a character in an adventure story, I would be the rouge. But, you know. Every genre has it's stereotypes, so, I was just pointing that out. Playing devil's advocate over here.
Cal . . . *sigh*. Cal. Um, well, let's just say that Cal is an interesting character. I am not pleased with how he was built up, but I am pleased with the problems he presents. You won't follow me until you read the book. And I can't tell you until you read the book. Because I'd hate to ruin the surprise of it all.
Now . . . The plot! The real gold of this endeavor! Oh, I can't gush enough over the plot. There are things you don't see coming, things you do see coming and cringe when they do come, and things that are so inevitable, but so well done. There is the romance plot, of course, which you can spot coming from a mile off because it's like "duh". That one is pretty well done, but it's not the best. I like the Faerie plot the best. Of course, they don't call them Faeries, exactly, but if you've ever read a contemporary fiction book, you can tell what they are. And of course, you know what's going to happen just after the people close their mouths', but it's like a train wreck. You can't stop yourself from reading it, even though you know it's going to be horrible.
Also, I love the steampunk world. Love, love, love. It's a completely believable world, one where they live and love and breath and it's all too real. The detail is incredible, and what detail you aren't given isn't hard to fill in on your own. The politics of cities and the rules of life are completely relatable, even though they don't apply at all to real life. It takes true talent to make a make-believe world real, and this one has it all.
There are also several things that have been given a new face. Most importantly, Weirds. In most books they're called 'affinities.' Or, at least, I would call them affinities, but then again, I do live in my own special universe. So, I guess I wouldn't know what they are called, generally. But this, again, is one you can see from miles away. I'm just glad that she doesn't make some sort of big deal out of it. Because if it was half the book, just trying to figure that out . . . that would be boring. Half a book spent doing anything, really, is pretty boring.
This one might be the first one in the series. Something about the "Iron Codex" was in the author's bio, but I'm not so sure.
Aofie Grayson: Torn between the iron and the wild. She must figure out where she fits in before it destroys her and everyone she's ever cared about. And even though her tale might be one of tragedy, she and her folk will always survive and prosper in my heart.
www.caitlinkittredge.com She generally writes adult books, that's my impression, but it might be worth a shot. Uh, and her "books" page isn't up and running, so go to the "blogs" tab, then go to "caitlin's books." Not a lot of information there, but just if you were wondering.
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